Wheres summer gone?

It feels like I haven’t spent much time in the garden at all this summer. It’s very strange right now weather wise. Wednesday was 22 degrees and humid, today is… well, wet, cold, and very miserable.

The garden however is growing very well. My wild carrot is knee height and getting ready to start flowering soon I think, the honeysuckle is rampant! I’m very impressed with it. I’m tying it into a wire system about 10cm away from the fence so it grows nice and bushy for small birds to nest in (fingers crossed) when its nice and mature.
The foxglove also seems to making an appearance, I wasn’t actually counting on it flowering this year so it’s a lovely surprise to see this :)

It’s all filling out nicely and this year instead of one returning bee we have multiple small bees visiting. They absolutely love the scabiosa and I’ve seen them mooching around the border for the campanula too. The packets of wildflower seed have not faired to well. I think I left it too late to sow and now I have a small cluster of seedlings underneath the amelanchier but I can’t see them developing into much before autumn. We’ll see.

The saved sweet pea seed my dad saved me…

I have a long list of to do’s and with the weather as it is it’s hard to find time to get out there. That and the lack of funds since returning from holiday!

I’m hardening off my sweet peppers this week so they are ready to pot up as soon as I can to the garden centre and get some bigger pots! I also need to get the next wire support up before the honeysuckle beats me to it! The strawberries are also coming along nicely.
The two blueberry ‘bushes’ I got in the sale are not. I’ve planted them up but they haven’t done anything, the chance you take I suppose buying out of season plants, although there is some greenery coming through on one of them, is it alive or is it a weed that’s taken advantage of the bare earth???

My freebie cottage plug plants from ‘Gardeners World" arrived three weeks ago, it was the day before we were due to drive off on holiday so it was a mad rush to find pots for them all.
Luckily I keep most of my pots from shop bought plants so I managed to get most of them into those the the rest I had to quickly squeeze into my sowing tray on the windowsill! :S
I’m hoping they will be big enough to plant out in the next couple of months, I didn’t actually realise how small they would be. Me thinking id put them straight into the border, which was the reason I held off sowing my wildflowers :(

Anyway, not really anything too interesting to report. I’d like to get the shed painted but with all this rain it’s making it a job getting round to it! Since most of my border is looking good now I’m wanting to pay attention to the “dark side” of the garden :) Painting the shed and rest of the fence, we need a couple of slabs which the builders missed out. Then I can sow grass seed on the bare patch in autumn and spruce it up a bit.

The ‘dark side’

Ideally id like to get a couple of those lovely wooden planters and paint them, then stick a hosta in each with some trailing ivy and some shade loving flower plant for the front of the shed, but, I doubt ill be that organised to get it done any time soon!

Comments

Things do seem to be coming on but just so very slowly....its cold, wet and windy here again and normally next weekend, beginning of july I pick my first tomatoes, the little ones.....now the odd flower is just coming out. In the double glazed greenhouse!!

Coming on nicely and I love that honeysuckle. Sorry the leaves in the blueberry pot aren't blueberries though. That's a nice pic of the bee in the campanula and nice to hear you are getting more bees this year.

Thanks everyone :) The slabs were actually there when we moved in. The shed was sitting on top of them but we moved it back as it was too far forward. We then realised the builders had left out two slabs to the front so we need to get a couple to make it a perfect square. Its currently the 'motorbike' patio at the moment, more of the OH's domain in the garden!

Stera - I somehow thought they might not be blueberry leaves! Ill pull it out now thanks. Pamg - I know what you mean, my strawberries we just about done this time last year! It's strange how late they are this year, must be the weather!

It's all looking very promising, Smoo. We have had lots of bumblebees this year but very few butterflies compared to last year.
I was impressed that you had "wild" carrot...over here we call it Queen Anne's Lace...It is so delicate and beautiful.
I also have mullein, which I have seen in very few gardens. (outside of Beth Chatto's) (Check out blog by Sheilabub). Since moving here I'm learning all about the plants that are considered "heirloom" or "wildflowers".
Had a disaster with what was "lawn" when we bought...it dried up and died and I left it to come up "au naturel"...and so it did...it's a pretty meadow. At least that's how I see it! :-) Hope I don't seem preachy, as I've been converted to the garden philosophy of planting what "wants" to grow in my garden. Some of my garden just came of it's own accord and I've left it...(rudbeckia is an example)... It's a source of wonder to see things thriving which have been brought by weather or birds. I know this style of gardening isn't for everyone. Just don't be too quick to pull something up if it's not what you first thought it to be..OK? (outside of some pernicious weeds of course...) Looks like I'm going to have a battle with bindweed (wild morning glory) in my meadow...that stuff is the dickens to get rid of and the roots! argh!.... But I wander about ripping out the ones I don't want...and what I don't get on the first pass will be culled on subsequent passes...lol.
I'm enjoying seeing your start...experience is the best teacher. The process of learning is so enjoyable that you don't realize how much you're storing away until you've been at it a few years. I look at some of my early blogs on goY and blush...lol...but it's all good...we learn best by doing.